cmm_of_wasm: From WebAssembly to Native Code via the OCaml Backend

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Simon Fowler
• Tuesday 24 July 2018, 13:15-13:45
• Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building, Room FW11.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Gemma Gordon.

WebAssembly is a low-level yet platform-independent language designed to replace JavaScript as a compilation target for web applications. WebAssembly has been billed as “Neither Assembly, nor just for the Web”, but the main production implementations are JIT compilers implemented in web browsers. As the WebAssembly specification evolves to incorporate new features such as garbage collection and threads, and with plans to support more advanced features such as handlers for algebraic effects on the horizon, it becomes important to prototype new features without having to modify complex browser code.

In this talk, I will describe cmm_of_wasm, a feature-complete ahead-of-time compiler which compiles WebAssembly to native code via a translation to OCaml’s CMM intermediate representation. I will give a tutorial introduction to WebAssembly, discuss challenges which arise both due to the design of WebAssembly and the choice of CMM as a compilation target, and discuss a roadmap for future work.

This talk is part of the Computer Laboratory NetOS Group Talklets series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cambridge talks
• Computer Laboratory NetOS Group Talklets
• Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building, Room FW11
• Department of Computer Science and Technology talks and seminars
• Interested Talks
• School of Technology
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• bld31

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.